Loremaster Solstrin says 'Incredible! Never before has an outlander been skilled and determined enough to craft our sacred rune. You are now worthy of the Dain's most perilous task. You should seek an audience with the Dain immediately. Show him your Runed Prayer Shawl; he will give you the task that has been prepared for you. If the Dain is away show your Shawl to Chamberlain Krystorf and he will call for him.'

Chamberlain Krystorf says 'One moment the Dain has been waiting for you. I will call for him.. oh here he is now, show your shawl to him.'

Hand the Runed Coldain Prayer Shawl Shawl to Dain Frostreaver IV.

Dain Frostreaver IV says 'Ah Trewayn. I was hoping to see you. We require your skilled hand. The Armory is overtaxed preparing armor for the war that we are preparing to wage on the Kromzek. We need you to help them by creating some Field Plate for a mission that is near to execution. Go see Loremaster Solstrin in the Hall of Ancestors, give him these orders. He holds the lore recorded on how to make the field plate. Return to me when you have completed a Standard Issue Kit.'

Loremaster Solstrin says 'So, the Dain needs your assistance with the Field Plate. The Dain must trust you a great deal to impart the wisdom of our armor creation to you. Here are the tomes. The first details how to make the basic armor, the other details how to begin [working with gemstones]. If the Dain is asking you for them you should place them in an [Issue Kit].

May Brell guide your hand friend, good luck to you.'

Receive Forge of Icewell Arms and Precious Gem Study.

You say, 'Working with gemstones?'

Loremaster Solstrin says 'Aye, gems are placed within the armor. Brell is pleased with this fusion of ore and gem. The combination produces a sturdy piece of armor. You will need some Etching Tools to work with the gems. If you ask Meg Tucter for a set, she should have some lying about.'

You say, 'An Issue Kit?'

Loremaster Solstrin says 'The Standard Issue Kit is what we issue to soldiers at the beginning of their mission. I have this empty one here. Place a complete set of Imbued Royal Velium Armor into it before you give it to the Dain.'

Receive Issue Kit, an 8-slot container with a combine button. Holds large items and is LORE MAGIC and NO DROP

Jewelry Shop - Thurgadin

You say, 'I need a set of Etching Tools'

Meg Tucter says 'Oh, really? There are not many around that work in faceting gems. I am surprised to see your interest. You can have this old set of mine. There is no need to return them, Talem recently made me a new sturdy set. Brell bless him.'

Chamberlain Krystorf says 'One moment the Dain has been waiting for you. I will call for him.. oh here he is now, show your shawl to him.'

Hand the Complete Issue Kit to Dain Frostreaver IV.

Dain Frostreaver IV says 'Excellent work Adorean. If I didn't know I would assume this was made by our most skilled artisans. You must hurry, General Bragmur has formed camp in Iceclad. Take the kit to the General, he had to drudge forward without any armor. His [mission] must be a success if we hope to successfully defend Thurgadin against the Giants.'

Receive Approved Issue Kit.

You say, 'What mission?'

Dain Frostreaver IV says 'After General Bragmur has equipped the armor you have created for him, give him these orders. He is a skilled diplomat and will need to reach the pirate Gnomes. We must enter into a pact with them. We will supply them with the velium that they need to build their silly gadgets, and they will take their ship back to Antonica and call for reinforcements from our ancestors. We hope they will accept this pact, after all Brell has been known to align himself with Bristlebane whom the Gnomes of Iceclad follow. You may be an important [factor] in their success'

You say, 'What factor?'

Dain Frostreaver IV says 'I fear that spies lurk in every corner. You may need to help the General reach the gnomish camp if the Kromrif has gotten word of our efforts. You should call on any allies that you have to assist in case they ambush you. Brell bless you Adorean, good luck.'

Iceclad Ocean

Find General Bragmur at location -3400, +9000.

You say, 'Hail, General Bragmur'

General Bragmur says 'Please keep yer voice down I am busy here. If you do not mind I would ask that ya kindly leave.'

Hand General Bragmur the Approved Issue Kit.

General Bragmur begins to put the armor, 'Finally the Dain has gotten word of my arrival here. I await his final orders before proceeding.'

Hand General Bragmur the Final Orders.

General Bragmur says 'The final orders, follow me closely! I pray that the Kromrif have not learned of our plans to allign with the gnomes.'

You will face 5 Encounters.

First Encounter: -3550 +7550

Commander Vjorik shouts 'The tracking wolves have found the Coldain! To the South West, Charge him!'

Four Kromrif Tracking Wolves spawn and attack. These cannot be snared or rooted. Unsure about stuns or mezzes. The wolves are not difficult.

The Tracking Wolf Coller drops here.

After the fight the General heads to the north again.

Second Encounter: -2200 +7250 (right next to the stone building)

Four Frost Giant Skirmishers spawn and attack. They hit for a max ~178 and are again easily dispatched.

The Spiked Velium Mallet drops here.

After the fight, the General heads northeast.

Third Encounter: -1100 +5950 (by one of the square dragon pillars)

Commander Kvarid and three Frost Giant Skirmishers spawn and attack. (They spawn on the General.) They cannot be stunned, mezzed, rooted or snared. The Frost Giant Skirmishers are level 55 and Commander Kvarid is 57.

Commander Kvarid's corpse shouts 'Arghhhh! Though you have felled me your plans shall not succeed! Rallos will destroy you all for invading our lands!'

The Ice Forged helmet drops here.

After the fight, the General heads northeast.

Fourth Encounter: +1500, +2250 (near Tower of Frozen Shadow)

Five Kromrif Tracking Wolves spawn and attack.

The Drakkel Wolf Claws drop here.

Fifth Encounter: +3700, +2650 (the lone tree on the hill)

Commander Vjorik and five Frost Giant Skirmishers spawn and attack. (They spawn on the General.)

The Snowchipper drops here.

After the fight, the General heads to the pirate island.

Iceclad Dock

General Bragmur says 'Lo there gnomes! Tell me is your camp located nearby?'

Ratop says 'Yar ye scruvy bearded dwarf, just over tha hill there.'

Ritap says 'Arrrrrrrrrrr!'

Iceclad Pirate Encampment

Captain Nalot says 'Hrm? Who is scuffin' around out here?'

General Bragmur says 'Greetings Captian Nalot, I have come to you with a proposition to make.'

Captain Nalot says 'Arrrrrr what is it ye want?'

General Bragmur says 'Well ya see sir, we have a surplus of Velium that we would not mind sharing with you for yer tinkerin' but would ask a favor in return for it.'

Captain Nalot says 'Velium eh? Well there matey lets hear what you have got to say!'

General Bragmur says 'I represent the Dain in this matter, we would like for you to use yer Icebreaker there to head to Antonica and bring reinforcements for the war that is preparing to ensue. We are needin' all the help we can get against the Kromrif.'

Avatar of Below 's voice echoes through the area. 'The efforts to help the Coldain and bring them together with the gnomes of Iceclad is quite impressive. There will be no doubt that they will continue to increase in power until they can overtake the Giants of Zek. Hey there, what is that on your shoulder?'

You say, 'Its a runed coldain prayer shawl'

Avatar of Below says 'So it is the sacred rune of the Coldain. Let me have a closer look at it.'

Hand the Avatar of Below the Runed Coldain Prayer Shawl.

Avatar of Below holds the shawl up close to one eye to look at the rune sewn into it. He smiles to himself and then drops it to the ground and places one hand on it. A bright blue glow starts to emanate in the snow, then there is a sudden flash! The Avatar has dissipated. All that is left behind is the Shawl lying in the snow, shimmering with a new power. Pirotess slowly bends down to pick it up, and is infused with a blessing from Brell.

Receive Blessed Coldain Prayer Shawl.

General Bragmur says 'I must go tell the Dain of these events immediately!'

Chamberlain Krystorf says 'One moment the Dain has been waiting for you. I will call for him.. oh here he is now, show your shawl to him.'

Hand the Complete Issue Kit to Dain Frostreaver IV.

Dain Frostreaver IV says 'Excellent work Adorean. If I didn't know I would assume this was made by our most skilled artisans. You must hurry, General Bragmur has formed camp in Iceclad. Take the kit to the General, he had to drudge forward without any armor. His [mission] must be a success if we hope to successfully defend Thurgadin against the Giants.'

Receive Approved Issue Kit.

You should add "Receive Expedition Orders" in addition to the Approved Issue kit.

Farmed2 Unrefined Diamond - Geonid cave in the south part of the Wakening Lands 3 Unrefined Emerald - Geonid cave in the south part of the Wakening Lands 3 Unrefined Sapphire -Geonid cave in the south part of the Wakening Lands 8 Velium Hound Fur - a velium hound or rogue dire wolf (Western Wastes) 15 Block of Velium - Crystal or Crystalline mobs (Velketor's Labyrinth) 4 Large Brick of Velium - Crystal or Crystalline mobs (Velketor's Labyrinth)

All the molds can be purchased in Bazaar Sold on Alabaer Escorioan. Make sure you get the ones that are not Templates (I.e. Plate Bracer Template Mold is the wrong one). You want Plate Bracer Mold x2 , Plate Vambraces Mold, etc

Also, the Velium sheets are no longer called Folded Sheet of Velium as the write up says. It is called Forge-Folded Sheet of Velium. Smithy Hammer + Block of Velium + Coldain Velium Temper to make. Trivial is 42.

1) make sure you make TWO Royal Velium Bracers.. it only shows 1 combine, but you need two of them for the kit

2) If you go to turn in the Completed Issued Coldain Kit to Dain, and he isn't up the 2nd time, petition right away, and they will change your shawl so you can spawn him.

3) do NOT hunt in the Wyvern caverns for the Emeralds/Sapphires/Diamonds.. you can go to the Geonid caves in The Wakening Lands, clear the cave twice, and you will have enough 'a shimmering geonid' up to get all your gems (one drops everytime it seemed)

so i talked to the loremaster - doing this quest for the third time so it should be a breeze right? nope. he says to go see chamberlain krystorf to spawn the dain, but chamberlain krystorf seems to be missing in action. he isn't even on track. any ideas on how to get HIM to spawn??

____________________________

Success comes when preparation meets opportunity -- and EQ is no exception.

I did the very top part of the quest under the description but then I past up Dain's Chamber and Hall of the Ancestors parts. I went immediately to Jewelry Shop and continues from there. I have not finished it yet and I am not sure where in the step you receive the final orders. I suspect you get them when you spawn the Dain for the last time but not sure according to the write up. Yes he does give you the orders and I was able to complete the 8th quest skipping the 2 steps.

Ok I am going to save you all a TON of trouble here. Do Not, I repeat DO NOT hand your Runed Prayer Shawl to Loremaster Solstrin first even though he asks to see it to get a coldain issue kit. IF you do it will invisibly mark your shawl as MARK 2 and you will NOT be able to spawn the Dain later by handing your shawl to Chamberlain Krystof even though he has never been given your shawl. The Chamberlain will just say "As I stated previously, you should show this to the Dain." NO SPAWN, Nothing. Save yourself the aggravation having to wait 3-7 days for the Dain to pop. I was fortunate enough to get a GM to quickly respond and confirm that some of the quest dialog is incorrect & it has been reported to the dev team.

I can confirm that Yo Pauly's advice is good and I wish I had read it first. DO NOT DO THIS STEP: "Hand Loremaster Solstrin your Runed Coldain Prayer Shawl (Mark 1)."

The text in alla's quest guide is misleading. The line "(note: This step is not required, if you spawn Dain, you may not respawn him later) " should go immediately alongside the Loremaster Solstrin step above rather than under the subheading "Dain's Chamber - Icewell Keep ". Ie you should read the start of the quest as follows:

Quote:

(Note: This following step is not required and if you spawn Dain, you may not respawn him later. Avoid doing this step!)Hand Loremaster Solstrin your Runed Coldain Prayer Shawl (Mark 1).

Loremaster Solstrin says 'Incredible! Never before has an outlander been skilled and determined enough to craft our sacred rune. You are now worthy of the Dain's most perilous task. You should seek an audience with the Dain immediately. Show him your Runed Prayer Shawl; he will give you the task that has been prepared for you. If the Dain is away show your Shawl to Chamberlain Krystorf and he will call for him.'

I'm now very confident that they fixed the spawning of Dain. After making the armor and creating the Complete Issue Kit I went back to Icewell Keep and sure enough, Dain wasn't up. On a whim I handed Chamberlain Krystorf my Runed Coldain Prayer Shawl again and again he said "As I stated previously, you should show this to the Dain.". I stuck around just as I had when typing my earlier post and sure enough after around 5-10 minutes I saw:

Quote:

Chamberlain Krystorf shouts 'The Royal Court of Dain Frostreaver IV and his council of advisors [sic] is now in session. Those citizens with official business for the crown please report to the throne room at this time.'

Loremaster Borannin says 'Incredible! Never before has an outlander been skilled and determined enough to craft our sacred rune. You are now worthy of the Dain's most perilous task. You should seek an audience with the Dain immediately. Show him your Runed Prayer Shawl; he will give you the task that has been prepared for you. If the Dain is away show your Shawl to Chamberlain Krystorf and he will call for him.'

Receive Runed Coldain Prayer Shawl (Mark 1)

The above quoted is incorrect. The in-game workings of this quest were apparently changed somewhere along the way -- I believe its bugged, not intentional. Now, this quest technically begins with Loremaster Solstrin in Icewell Keep. Give your #7 shawl to Solstrin, an he replies with the above text. Those are Solstrin's words, not Borannin's words. Now, Borannin won't offer any further dialogue upon completion of shawl #7 -- although it would seem he did at some point in the past.

Loremaster Solstrin says 'Incredible! Never before has an outlander been skilled and determined enough to craft our sacred rune. You are now worthy of the Dain's most perilous task. You should seek an audience with the Dain immediately. Show him your Runed Prayer Shawl; he will give you the task that has been prepared for you. If the Dain is away show your Shawl to Chamberlain Krystorf and he will call for him.'

He exchanges the original #7 Shawl for the updated version (Lore: Approved by Dain) and simultaneously provides the Empty Coldain Issue Kit used in this quest.

Yes, it would appear that giving the #7 shawl to Solstrin now EATS your ability to summon the Dain via Chamberlain Krystof.

This part is wrong. Should be Loremaster Solstrin not borannin as he will not take shawl at this point.

Hand Loremaster Borannin your Runed Coldain Prayer Shawl (Mark 1).

Loremaster Borannin says 'Incredible! Never before has an outlander been skilled and determined enough to craft our sacred rune. You are now worthy of the Dain's most perilous task. You should seek an audience with the Dain immediately. Show him your Runed Prayer Shawl; he will give you the task that has been prepared for you. If the Dain is away show your Shawl to Chamberlain Krystorf and he will call for him.

Please Change to,

Hand Loremaster Solstrin your Runed Coldain Prayer Shawl (Mark 1).

Loremaster Solstrin says 'Incredible! Never before has an outlander been skilled and determined enough to craft our sacred rune. You are now worthy of the Dain's most perilous task. You should seek an audience with the Dain immediately. Show him your Runed Prayer Shawl; he will give you the task that has been prepared for you. If the Dain is away show your Shawl to Chamberlain Krystorf and he will call for him.

You have to speak to the Dain twice for this quest but only have the ability to spawn him ONCE. The EQTC walk through gives a nice explanation of how to get all the items first - then spawn the Dain, craft your final item, and while the Dain is still up hand him back what's required. So you do it all with one spawning of the Dain. I wish I had read this first so I'm posting it for others.

Ok this is what happened. I did it on my druid and everything went smoothly. then i started the final part on my chanter- where you follow the General around. I has to wait 4 hours or so for him to respawn. I lost him after the 3rd wave. he was absolutely nowhere. So i petitioned it.

The gm gave me the armor and the expedition orders. I waited again for him to respawn. I gave him the armor and he put it on. then i gave him the orders. he gave them back to me and said he wasn't moving without final orders. I gave them to him again, and again he gave them back. I was very upset but i started the armor part all over again. I did all the hunting and combining and then went to see the Dain. But of course, i couldn't spawn him because he had already appreved my prayer shawl. i checked another character to pick up some mail while waiting for him to spawn and lo and behold but the gm had given her a kit and orders. she wasn't even doing the quest. i logged back to my chanter. then i saw someone else in the Dain's chamber. Come to find out he was also doing the quest. my computer has been giving me problems.

I went to open up my browser and i don't know what happened, but suddenly they were all coming at me and my pet was on them -- needless to say my druid had to get me out of there. luckily i was boxing her.

I went back in and the other group had spawned the Dain. I got the royal orders from him, ran down and got a kit and combined it and ran back to the Dain, who had gone to his bedroom by now. I did the turn in and he began to talk to me. I followed the conversation to the end but got no other orders. I was upset about that, but decided to try it anyhow. I still had the expedition orders that had been refused several times the day before.

I was in for a surprise when i got to the General. There were 2 of them up. One still had my armor on him. I thought for sure he would have despawned. So i tried again to give him the orders. To my shock he accepted them. this time i followed the druid who followed the general and we let the mercs do most of the fighting. I never took my eyes off him. The mobs all aggroed on me without ever having to target anyone. I did throw a few spells but my main goal was to not let him out of my sight. I am now the proud owner of my prayer shawl and btw, i still have 2 sets of approved armor and 1 expedition order if anyone on the Luclin server needs an mq.

____________________________

Success comes when preparation meets opportunity -- and EQ is no exception.

I got through the 3rd wave and he just disappeared. i went north hoping to see him again but nada. my druid didn't even see him on track. now what? I petitioned it and i hope they help me at least recover the stuff to start him again. this sucks royally.

____________________________

Success comes when preparation meets opportunity -- and EQ is no exception.

Chamberlain Krystorf says 'One moment the Dain has been waiting for you. I will call for him.. oh here he is now, show your shawl to him.'

Hand the Runed Coldain Prayer Shawl Shawl to Dain Frostreaver IV.

Dain Frostreaver IV says 'Ah Trewayn. I was hoping to see you. We require your skilled hand. The Armory is overtaxed preparing armor for the war that we are preparing to wage on the Kromzek. We need you to help them by creating some Field Plate for a mission that is near to execution. Go see Loremaster Solstrin in the Hall of Ancestors, give him these orders. He holds the lore recorded on how to make the field plate. Return to me when you have completed a Standard Issue Kit.'

Did this solo, no merc, today, was an easy stroll. Each time the general got to a spawn spot, all I had to do was hit one mob and they all turned on me; my concern that getting the whole group on me might take too long and the general would take too much damage was unfounded. I didn't aggro the general at all, didn't have to use AE aggro nor was there any reason to stop him moving. I had planned to use AE aggro if needed and then FD to clear his aggro on me, so I'd removed all DS... but it turned out unimportant.

I have seen it posted a couple of times in other threads where people say the General can be mem-blurred and he will continue the journey. One post mentioned it in passing where they said if someone gets agro be ready to mem-blur the General or have a mage CotH them or a wizard punt them somewhere. The other thread talked about intentionally having someone agro the General to run him away from the fights to keep him safe and then mem-blurring him after the fight to move on to the next stage.

Moments ago I completed the Blessed Coldain Prayer Shawl for my cleric with my 3-box crew. It consisted of all level 65's warrior, cleric and shaman.

The key to the win was staying calm and carefully targeting all mobs for agro quickly. I didn't even come close to dieing. I have completed this quest four times with my toons and this was the first solo-box attempt. It was easier than all the other attempts to date. I knew what to expect and I didn't have to play "raid leader" for the groups I've had in the past.

The item itself is only an upgrade in mana regen and the focus as I am still only level 65. I will still wear it proudly until the focus is no longer useful.

Can someone PLEASE add this fact to the write-up for this quest: you need to make TWO (2) Imbued Royal Velium Bracers for your Standard Issue Kit. This fact cost us so much time ...kept trying to figure out why the combine wasn't working....went over the write-up several times ... had everything it told us was needed...wasn't until i read all the posts and got to one way far down the list, that i discovered you needed 2 for the combine to be successful.

I just tried to complete the final battle of this quest with a 66 mage and a 67 necro. We wiped during the third wave. The giants summon, which makes kiting impossible. They also conned dark blue and hit in the 100-200 range. The main problem is that the coldain who you're supposed to keep alive is a little frail. During wave 2, he was reduced to 40 percent life during the first five seconds of the battle, before we peeled the skirmishers off him. He cannot be healed by a necro, but he does heal quickly on his walk to the next camp, though was only about 80 percent when the next wave started.

In short, this is probably not a quest two high-level 60-something characters can do alone.

All the molds needed are plate molds EXCEPT for the breastplate mold which is just "breastplate mold"

they're all sold from the Bazaar merchants which makes all the velium smithing go much easier beacuse of the weight

Morro

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Morromid (Everquest) Terris-Thule -> Prexus -> now The Rathe Server The more extensive a man's knowledge of what has been done, the greater will be his power of knowing what to do. Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)

After we finished the 5th battle, he had already started moving, so it took us a little while to find and catch up to him. FYI he stops at the pirate camp and the Avatar of Below spawns in the fire at about 4584,1312. The avatar looks like a giant dwarf.

The pieces needed for the combine are the NO TRADE Imbued pieces and not the droppable Engraved pieces you get by combining with the Etching Kit a final time. I, like an idiot, did a final combine and GMs will not turn the pieces back to an Imbued state allowing me to finish the quest.

I wish I had been more careful in my reading of what was needed. I fear I got just a little too overzealous. Ah well... it was only hours and hours and hours of time spent collecting the necessary items.

I had done it a couple of days ago for myself for the first time and had to wait for General respawn so we could get my friend his Blessed shawl.

Eveything hunky-dory but he didn't say the phrase 'runed coldain prayer shawl' before giving it and the Avatar ate it. No Blessed, no return of Runed.

Allakhazam suggestion: Would this web site please put in bold letters at the top of the quest something similar to:

Before turning in shawl to Avatar, recite the phrase first

I can't believe that mobs still eat stuff. Especially, since I figured they would have fixed it by now on that Avatar for such an important item. My friend petitioned but has serious doubts he'll either get the Blessed or at least the Runed, orders, and issue kit to try again.

We finally got to this today, the box and orders have been in my bank for about a year. Its not realy much compared to alot of the Oow gear and stuff out there, but it was more about the sense of accomplishment. Needless to say, we had 7 people, 70 Necro, 70 Rogue, 70 Mage, 69 Druid, 62 Berserker, 65 Shammy, and a 51 Ranger. Not too hard, just takes him a long time to walk...which is good. We had the casters run up ahead to med, at the next point, and the rogue guarded the General from trash along the way. Not many close calls, the Druid was Main Healer, and he was boxed. Good luck on yer fun!!

Ok I finally got everything I need to do the final crawl. Now that toons can go to level 70, does this change the number of groups you need to complete this task? Can this be done with one group of 65-70? Are you best to still use 2? Just wondering if the new changes have changed what you need to complete this successfully.

Seems to me that there is no Plate Breastplate mold. What I did find was just a breastplate mold from the same vendor that sold the plate molds. I tried the combine and it failed because I lack the skills required. Anyone know if this is the correct mold? I believe that it is... however.. not sure

I recall there being some kind of fuss over a "ninja looting" of an 8th shawl on my server, Bertox. I believe that in the VERY early days of this quest, the shawl would appear on the ground. This person walked up after a guild had finished the walk and picked up the shawl. There was a post about it on berthall.com which I am trying to find...

Anyways, that answers my question. Thanks. Now...how might one MQ their 7th shawl for someone else? Is that possible?

It is (or should I say was) possible to help another player MQ for the 8th shawl. I did it myself for a guildie back in 2003.

Here's what's required. Both toons need to have the 7th shawl, so that the MQer can get the box for the armor. Once you have made all the No Trade armor and combined it in the box, you go get the orders for the General, and give him the orders and armor. At the end, have the other toon (MQee) hand in their 7th shawl to the avatar and say the trigger phrase. Viola! They get the 8th shawl, and you get to go make another set of armor :) It saves both toons from having to skill up their smithing. But both players must have exactly the 7th shawl.

Besides the Approved Issuing Box, I am supposed to give General Bragmur the Final Orders. I have 2 sheets, 1 called Expedition Orders and 1 called Royal Coldain Orders (RCO is not a listed item on Allakhazam's site). Are the Final Orders one of these or did I miss something?

For anyone else confused about this, I have since found out that, as I suspected, the Expedition Orders are used with General Bragmur. The Royal Coldain Orders are used to get the Standard Issue Kit. Why the RCO was still in my possession after I gave it to Loremaster Solstrin, I do not know.

i got the empty coldain issue kit and i made all of the imbued royal velium helmet,bracers,vambraces,gauntlets,greaves,boots,field plate (7 items) and when i hit the combine it says cannot combine these items in this containner type, is the quest broken or changed?

reading all these misleading posts on the GEONIDS page, disregard all of them... I got ALL THREE different kinds of gems from ALL placeholders... regular geonid's spawn the Shimmerings, all near entrance too there are no special camps they all drop random gems, got all 3 diff kinds from regular geo placeholders at ENTRANCE - did all combines no problem with 184 jewelrycrafting base... more with geerlok

They have revamped the quest too. (I have that straight from a GM who was online in IC at the time)

Everything goes as normal until the final fight. Then a new mob spawns, called a doomshadow. It's invisible like shades, has about 4 to 5k hp at first guess... hits for 140's think. there are 4 of them. After they spawn, the commanders spawn at the same point, so you need a touch more fighting power in order to complete this.

They are not particularly tough, but we only had 9 peeps with the only cleric being a 56 cleric, and we wiped on them. They killed the cleric early, and then we were tickets. Up until then we'd been fine.

I dont think it would be that much harder if you knew about them, but try and get a group up to the final spawn point well ahead of the general. They spawn way earlier than the commanders.

I don't think that's entirely correct... The only (two) doomshawdows we faught just now, doing my shawl8, were well before the final encounter, and we cleared them (after monk aggroed the General to slow him up) then memblurred the General and proceded to the final encounter.

*oh, I should mention that you should stay on the general's right for the trip past the tower... you still might aggro something, but it's alesser chance

We just ran the shawl for a member on Feb 20, 2005 and there was no change from when I got mine back in Oct. I think the doomshadows were part of the one time quests dealing with Firona Vie and not related to the shawl at all. Just the normal shawl mobs spawned at each wave point.